We left my mates’ parents’ home an hour later, the truck rumbling low and steady as it carved through the dark forest.
I sat in the back again.
Couldn’t sleep.
Every bump rattled through my bones. Every shadow sliding past the window made my pulse spike just a little harder. The night pressed in too close, too quiet. Like it was waiting.
Rose shifted restlessly inside me.
Something’s wrong.
“I know,” I whispered.
The feeling had been building for miles now. A slow, suffocating pressure at the base of my skull. A weight in my chest that wouldn’t ease, no matter how I breathed through it.
Cade’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
Locked on mine.
“What is it?” he asked quietly.
I opened my mouth—
And the headlights swept across the road.
Illuminating a figure standing dead cent
